


you remind me of home

by foreverfelicityqueen (stydiasredstring)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Family, Family Fluff, Gen, arrow next gen verse, oliver being the most dad to ever dad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27890581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stydiasredstring/pseuds/foreverfelicityqueen
Summary: Oliver Queen had lived nearly a decade of his life in constant struggle and almost insurmountable pain. And he knows that if it wasn’t for his friends and family he would have succumbed to the darkness long ago. But it was each of his children that truly kept him on the path of the light.
Relationships: Oliver Queen & Mia Smoak, Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	1. Mia

**Author's Note:**

> I decided for the holidays I'm just gonna write a ficlet for Oliver's relationship with each of his children: bio and not. So I hope you like it.

Oliver always knew his kids would pick a favorite parent. Not that they didn’t all love both of them. But he recalled first hand how he had always gravitated to his mother while Thea had been a Daddy’s girl from her first breath. And he wasn’t even surprised when most of his kids chose Felicity over him either. He understood. Felicity Smoak was amazing. 

It was a long weekend in June, and Oliver couldn’t believe the house was actually quiet for once. He knew he had a few proposals to go over for the new mayoral campaign, but a quiet house when you had so many kids wasn’t a peaceful experience. 

He knew William and Felicity were in back to back meetings all day. Wes had gone on a roadtrip with Apollo. Eliza and Ada were spending the weekend in Vegas with their grandparents, while the twins were at music camp. So that just left Mia, and while she was never loud, she definitely didn’t sit on the quiet side of the family. 

Mia was their biggest Felicity supporter. And Oliver couldn’t help but laugh, since they both were so much alike. 

_Ring. Ring._ He picked up his phone and smiled at Felicity’s photo.

“What happened to don’t text or call today,” he teased as he answered. “You threatened me with cooking dinner, remember?”

“Yeah see Mia just texted me,” Felicity took the deep breath she did every time she was going to tell him something important. “She just started her first period.”

He didn’t even bat an eye at that. With two under his belt, and just Miriam to go after Mia, Oliver felt like he was handling this teenage girl puberty thing pretty well. “Does she need pads or tampons? I can make a drugstore run.”

“No she raided the Ada’s room for those,” she paused and he could tell she was distracted. “She just couldn’t find the hot water bottle, and she was craving chocolate. And I’m stuck in these stupid meetings and I just wanna hug my baby girl, and make a big deal out of this. Because it is. Even though she’s gonna act like it’s not. And I just-- Sometimes I hate being the working parent.”

“Want me to come play CEO so you can come home?”

“As sweet of an offer as that is, I should stay. But can you find the hot water bottle for her?”

He agreed, and they said their ‘love you’s’ before he hung up. 

The water bottle was the easiest thing to find, in the downstairs bathroom. When he spotted Felicity’s blue terry cloth robe, Oliver had an idea.

“Knock, knock,” he said a few minutes later as he waited outside her door for a response.

He heard her muffled voice as she said. “Come in.”

He pushed the door, to find his thirteen year old, tucked into a ball in the center of her bed. Hands over her abdomen as she winced at the pain.

Felicity had always kept him in the loop of things like this. When Eliza had her first period she insisted on throwing a period party, and themed it after Carrie. Ada on the other hand, just wanted a girls day with Felicity and Thea. But according to Felicity, Mia had told her when she started she wanted to ignore it. 

“Your mom called.” he said with a shrug. “Said you could use a few things.”

She groaned in pain as she turned to him. “I told her to forget it.”

“Yeah well, you know your mom,” he smirked as he pulled a medium basket from behind his back. “So if you don’t want any of this, I can always take it back downstairs.

She craned her head to get a better look. “What is all that?”

“Well,” he came closer, handing her the hot water bottle first. “This.”

“Thanks,” she said, tucking it to her stomach. “What else did you bring?”

“I have, chocolate, and by that I mean the good stuff your mom hides from you kids so you don’t eat 12 lbs. of it,” he handed her the bag of chocolate covered espresso beans. “And there’s Midol, kettle cooked BBQ chips, Sprite, left to fizzle down a little, because I know you like it.” Then he pulled out the robe and laid it over her. “And your mom’s robe, so you can feel like she’s here until she gets home.”

It was a testament to how unwell she must be feeling because Mia curled up with the robe and tears were forming in her eyes. But he wouldn’t mention them.

“I’ll leave you alone now,” he turned to leave, but her hand shot out to his.

“Wait, Daddy,” she whispered. Another tell that she wasn’t feeling great, Mia only called her that when she was sick or sad. “Wanna stay for a bit and watch a movie?”

He smiled, his work could wait until later. Mia needed his now. “Yeah, I got time." He lowered himself to the floor by her bed, handing up the chips. "What are we watching?"


	2. Thomas

“It was dangerous, it was reckless, it was--”

“The only way to get the drop on that gang,” TJ interjected as he shoved his bow into the work bench. “And I would have been fine without you there.”

Oliver folded his hands onto each other. His children sometimes acted too much like him. Even the ones from other earths. 

“I get it,” his son scoffed and Oliver had to move to keep him from leaving. “Of everyone in your life, I’m the most equipped to understand wanting to go it alone in the field.”

“Something tells me there’s a but coming?”

“You’re not invincible Thomas.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

He could see the look pass on TJ’s face, a look he recognized from years ago. The one that would ghost over his features in surface puddles or passing glass. The one that told more truth than his words ever would. He learned in fragments that Thomas’ story paralleled his own too well. He had hoped this piece would have been left out.

“It’s not fair, you know,” Oliver looked over to the group near the center of the Bunker. Jade was helping Mia wrap her bruised ribs as Felicity and William worked tirelessly at the monitors, still tracking their targets. “You wanting to do this alone, only works if you don’t have people who would care if you didn’t come back at the end of the night.”

“I appreciate the pep talk, but I didn’t ask for a team.”

“No you didn’t,” he nodded slowly. “You did ask for help finding Jade, though. So after everything you two have been through, you think she’d be okay if you got yourself killed?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

He shook his head, letting his gaze find Felicity again. She seemed to sense his stare as she looked over and smiled at them.

“You can say that you’ll be fine, but you can’t plan for everything,” he placed his hand on his son’s shoulder as he moved to pass him. “Take it from someone who wasted too much time trying to push the people who loved me away. It didn’t stop them from showing up, it just made it harder for them to help when I really needed it.”

He hoped TJ would be better than him, that in coming here his son would have a brighter future than the Earth that had taken his entire family from him. He had to smile as he came to stand at his wife’s side. She had taught him that kind of hope. And through the years he had learned, no matter how much their children resembled him, they all had a piece of Felicity as well. So he knew Thomas would be fine, in time. 


End file.
